Résumé
As a whole, qigong, "practices of qi", breathing practices, corporeal and self-cultivation practices, is a (therapeutic and religious) body of knowledge and practices including elements of biomedical and biological sciences. Located at the core of therapeutic plurality, it reveals lay, traditional and modern knowledge and practices referring to key elements of Chinese thought and culture.The first part of the dissertation is about plurality in China from both historical and anthropological perspectives. The second part focuses on qigong practices, paradigmatic example of plural practice. Qigong is taken as a social phenomenon part of late 1980-1990s religious revival in China. The research is based on concepts and methods of social anthropology (ethnography), anthropology of health and China studies (history and sources). Fieldstudy was conducted in China for 13 months in rural context (Hainan Province in 1990) and in urban context (Guangzhou, 1991-1992), in multi-ethnic, pluri-linguistics and (Han) Southern Chinese sub-ethnic contexts. Collected in Canton, data on qigong consist of (participant) observations, oral sources from interviews, conversations and life stories (biographical method), diverse contemporary and historical written sources, audio and videotape records. Qigong forms and narratives are numerous and reveal multi-layered meanings. They are rooted in religious, medical, and martial arts practices and knowledge. Qigong demonstrates as well the importance of science in its development from the 1980s. Legitimation is sought in the scientific body of knowledge and practice. Such an heterogenous and hybrid body refers to at least two learning theories and medical epistemologies, one rooted in the local/national epistemology (Chinese thought and medicine), the other, from Europe at origin, adapted to the Chinese context (science paradigm). Qigong in the late twentieth century China, informs about governance aspects in the Chinese world and about State-society actors' interactions. For one generation, it was a privileged channel for voicing concerns and aspirations of persons, groups and diverse organizations in PR Chinese society. Qigong was an ideal observatory for studying social and cultural transformations in a period of accelerated economic reforms (initiated in the 1980s). Its multiple and innovative aspects transport us at the heart of religious and scientific practices. Early 1990s, I observed and analyzed medical forms revealing systematically religious components, ritual sequences, beliefs and ideas, and affiliations of practitioners. Institutionalized in the pre-constructed framework of traditional medicine in the healthcare system, system of "integrated" medical bodies resulting from post-1949 restructuring of the public health system, medical components were brought about and qigong was stripped of its religious aspects and meanings. The "official" obsession, unveiled as well among a number of qigong masters practicing within public sector's medical facilities, was to "scientifically" demonstrate qigong efficacy. Legitimation routes include experimental protocols as well as cultural and religious historical referents. Forms and contents of transmission reveal refined variations from ethnographic biographies: the building and development of the master-disciple relation are at the core of transmission, including a whole range of innovative components. Beyond permanences, new knowledge production processes are at work showing key epistemological shifts. Social organizations forms and networks gathering eclectic groups, civic and official actors can also be identified through qigong social phenomenon.Shortly, qigong as a social practice drawing on hybrid knowledge, highlights intertwinness at work between science and religion, modernity and tradition in times of China deep social change and globalization.(see Micollier, E. 1996 « Entre science et religion, modernité et tradition, le discours pluriel des pratiquants du qigong » dans J.Benoist éd. Soigner au pluriel. Essais sur le pluralisme médical, Paris, Karthala : 205-223)